Cory Doctorow

Because obviously we didn't invent greed in the middle of the last decade.

So something changed that caused these companies to start doing this extraction.

And my theory is that what changed is that...

We have this, as I say, in shitogenic policy environment, that our policymakers took decisions in living memory after being warned about the consequences that had the outcome of making it so that when companies mistreat you or mistreat their suppliers or their business customers, that rather than losing in the market by having their profits decline, their workers depart, their customers jump ship, that they gain in the market, they do better.

And so in shitification is not just when a platform goes bad, it's when a platform goes bad and does well.

And so you could see two platforms, both of which were doing bad things to you.

But I would argue that it's not really in shitifying unless they thrive as a consequence, right?

If they fail as a consequence, well, that's just how the market works, right?

I'm not the world's biggest believer in markets.

I'm a...

I think markets are a useful tool, but I don't think they're the best way of organizing everything.

But, you know, I do understand that in the theory of markets, the idea is that when companies do bad, they do bad financially.

And, you know, this is a bedrock.

Adam Smith and Wealth of Nations, he says, you know, it's not through the beneficence of the baker that we get our bread.

It's through his self-regard, right?

The baker is motivated to give you a good loaf of bread because he knows that if he gives you a bad one, you'll buy it.

your bread somewhere else and he'll go out of business.

And so when you have that being short-circuited because of policies, and I want to stress here, these are not like nebulous, you know, like a bad idea from a politician.

These are very specific policies that had this very foreseeable outcome.

When companies can take advantage of those policies to mistreat you and do well, then I'd say that that's in shitified.